BRUCE CONNER

The Dennis Hopper One Man Show

16 January 2003 - 1 March 2003

Susan Inglett is pleased to exhibit BRUCE CONNER and THE DENNIS HOPPER ONE MAN SHOW VOLUME II. The exhibition will run from 16 January to 1 March 2003.
“There’s a point in time when I started self-consciously gluing the world down and making it mine, putting my name on it and hanging it on the wall”. In this 1990 interview with Robert Dean, Bruce Conner could as easily be discussing the genesis of his work in film, collage, or assemblage. Not one to restrict his art making to a single medium, Conner has nonetheless remained fascinated by a single act. That single act manifests itself beautifully in the wood engraving collages and subsequent etchings, THE DENNIS HOPPER ONE MAN SHOW.
Working in secrecy, the paper collages were pieced together beginning about 1959 from 19th century wood engravings which Conner had collected or accumulated. These works on paper were produced concurrent to the film and assemblage for which he had become known. Taking advantage of the public’s ignorance of this new and seemingly disparate body of work, and of the technique’s association with another artist, Max Ernst, Conner decided to attribute the collages to yet another artist, Dennis Hopper. The unwillingness of a dealer to exhibit the work under another’s name and the unwillingness of the artist to reveal his identity, led to their relative obscurity.
It was not until the late Sixties when Kathan Brown invited Conner to work at Crown Point Press that the wood engraving collages were resurrected. Working backward, Conner returned the collages to their original printed state.
The etchings, twenty six in all, were published, bound in three black leather volumes and titled collectively THE DENNIS HOPPER ONE MAN SHOW. Acting simultaneously as art work and as foil for a larger conceptual project, this series is considered by many to be among Conner’s major works.
The exhibition of the THE DENNIS HOPPER ONE MAN SHOW VOLUME II follows the exhibition of THE DENNIS HOPPER ONE MAN SHOW VOLUME III in September 2001, per the instructions and singular logic of Bruce Conner.
The work will be on view at the gallery located 100 Wooster Street/2 Floor Tuesday to Saturday 11 AM to 6 PM.
For more information contact Susan Inglett at 212/343-0573 and fax 212/343-0574.